back to the start
by hobblepot
Summary: It's three more years before Oswald's cellphone hums and hums over his desk one evening and he finally answers, a familiar voice crackling on the other end. "Hello Oswald." The sound of it pins the breath in Oswald's throat. It takes him a moment to know what to say, his pulse quickening. [Originally written: 19/06/2017)


There's a saying in Gotham, that hate lasts longer than love. No one who has lived there long enough questions it anymore. But even hate can't last forever.

And though it takes three long years for the bridge Ed and Oswald torched down together to burn itself out, it does, leaving the faint, bitter taste of ash in their mouths when the smoke thins away. And one day they realize they can stand on the same side of the street as each other again and live with flashing teeth and half-empty threats instead of guns and switchblades. Standing each other, because they can't stand anyone else.

It's three more years before Oswald's cellphone hums over his desk one evening and he finally answers, a familiar voice crackling on the other end. Gravely-raw, sleepless.

"Hello Oswald."

The sound of it pins the breath in Oswald's throat.

"It's Penguin," he spits out the name, after a moment. "You lost your right to call me by name - and should you forget a second time, I assure you it will be the last mistake you make."

"Touchy as always. I suppose I deserve that one."

There's no apology in Ed's voice. Just a wry little half-smile Oswald doesn't know what to do with because it's not half as roguish and smug as he expected it to be.

"What do you want, Nygma?" He presses, determined to stay angry. "You seemed to be enjoying your little vacation. But why the break?"

For a while the Riddler had been an inescapable presence in the city, hijacking airwaves and television stations and basking in the limelight he viciously competed for. The sort of man who couldn't let himself disappear from front page headlines of the Gotham Gazette, as if he never was. But he did - and with it had come what Oswald thought was a welcome escape from the riddles. Then days slid into weeks, weeks into months, and Oswald found himself looking around for a flash of shimmery-bright, green fabric, for that hyena grin he wanted so badly to slap off Ed's face.

"Did something prick your conscience? Or did you just run out of ideas for those stupid riddles of yours?"

Oswald barks out a scoff of a laugh, a little disappointed when Ed doesn't rise to the bait. He's still there, though, not quite silent because Oswald can hear the sound of his breathing through parted lips, a soft, shallow rasping like he's winded from bolting up a flight of stairs and trying to hide it.

"Some try to hide, others try to cheat, but time will show we will always meet..."

Another goddamn riddle. Oswald pinches the bridge of his nose. "I don't have time for this." He hisses.

"Neither do I."

Oswald yanks the phone away from his ear ready to snap it shut, and Ed knows this, knows Oswald too well.

"Wait-" he croaks, desperation edging his voice.

Oswald does.

Whatever Edward Nygma is about to say doesn't matter so much as the fact that he has never taken a pleading tone with him for anything. And Oswald hates that he's already giving in, giving Ed the audience he wants and doesn't deserve. "Look," Oswald presses the phone to his ear again, "I'm so flattered you decided you wanted to play catch-up, but I have a city to run."

"Death. The answer is death."

"What?"

"They... they discovered a primary glioblastoma." A slow, unsteady breath. "A highly aggressive form of cancer."

Oswald's face screws up. "Who?" He demands. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Brain cancer. I'm dying, Oswald."

Oswald goes cold.

From somewhere far away he can hear his pulse thundering away in his skull.

"As of last week I've experienced my first seizure." Ed falters, his throat clicking. "...It's not fun. I preferred it when it was just the headaches and the vomiting."

The phone goes heavy in Oswald's grip. His feet lead him, stumbling, to an armchair as the room begins to spin. He drops into it, feeling his chest begin to fold in on itself.

"...Oswald?" Ed's voice is so small in his ear.

"Fuck you, Nygma-" Oswald blurts out, his hand bunching into a fist. "If this is your idea of a joke-"

A bitter little chuckle answers him.

"It's not. I wish it was."

Pauses between sentences lengthen, deepen, the both of them floundering but neither hanging up.

"...Well, even if you're telling truth - which you'll have to forgive me if I find a little hard to believe for reasons you are well aware of - then why are you calling me about it? Just cut the damn thing out already! If there isn't anyone in this city willing or skilled enough for the job then leave Gotham, if you must - do something!"

Ed sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth. "I have been." He grits out. "...It's inoperable."

A beat.

"That means there is no safe way to excise the mass."

"I know what it means!" Oswald snarls, his knuckles whitening around the phone. He closes his eyes. A muscle flexes in his cheek. "So, what? Are you looking for a handout?" He swallows and feels the spit stick in his throat. "Or am I just supposed to feel sorry for you?"

"Neither. Out of respect for what we meant to each other, I just... I thought you should know."

"Well, mission accomplished - I hope you're satisfied."

The line goes quiet again, Oswald's skull filling with a numb buzzing. He just breathes and breathes, feeling strange and unmoored and waiting for the moment to pass and the next to come. But it won't because Ed's still there, still breathing, that soft, anxious rasping in his ear.

"...how long?" Oswald asks, finally.

"I don't know." There's a flat, factual calm to the way Ed says it, as if he's talking about someone else, anyone else. Or rehearsed it in front of a mirror for hours. "Could be a month, could be three. A year, at the very most."

Oswald just closes his eyes again, jaw clenched.

"I'm aware that things have been... strained between us, to say the least." Ed says, and it's the closest thing to an apology he knows he's ever given. But not close enough. "But I'd like to make a proposition. ...Consider it part of my going-away party." He adds after a moment, trying for a laugh.

It's a lonely, broken sound.

* * *

Three days later Oswald makes for their rendezvous point, the corner of a quiet intersection, neither wanting to be the first one there or the last to arrive. Not entirely knowing what to expect but knowing enough to save a bullet for a spot between Ed's eyebrows if it came to it.

His heart lurches in his chest when Ed appears, rounding the corner. Smartly dressed for the job, gloves and cane and all, bowler hat tilted at a jaunty angle. Passing on empty pleasantries, they take measure of each other for a moment, trying to read between the fine lines hatched into each others' faces, feeling out what's changed. It's been long enough that Oswald can't properly tell if Ed's has always looked so gaunt or if it's only the sickly wash of light from the lamp they're standing under but then they're turning and heading for the Iceberg Lounge, their canes clicking over the sidewalk, and it doesn't matter, there's work to be done.

Two drinks in (Ed doesn't ask and Oswald doesn't offer) and things feel uncomfortably normal, even okay, the way their minds slot together and click into place like parts of the same machine. Few things bring them together like their mutual resentment towards Jim Gordon - and it's while they spitball increasingly grandiose ideas on how to torture him that it almost seems like nothing's changed at all. Almost.

It's when they hone in on the finer details of all their plans and contingency plans that little _things_ begin to show. Easy to ignore, until they aren't.

Still, Oswald tries to tell himself that Ed's just looking for his input whenever he breaks off mid-sentence, his lips parted as if for dramatic effect. Ed was always hungry for his approval, for a captive audience, after all. But whenever Oswald tries to pick up their conversation where it drops off Ed lifts a finger to stop him more often than not, his brow pinched, sometimes, as if in pain. Or Ed stands there, blank-faced but tense, touching his fingers to his thumbs like he's waiting for something. Oswald gives up on being patient and talks on and on with and without Ed, pretending he doesn't notice whenever Ed half-turns away and checks the notebook in his pocket five times in just as many minutes. Trying to ignore a low, sick throb in his chest that won't go away.

Just after eight the next evening he and Ed have managed to capture Jim and Ed finds a way to hijack and rig up a crane, grinning his toothy grin while dangling Jim on the end of the hook over a lion pen in Gotham Zoo. As much as they both want to stay and watch the Bat struggle through puzzles in an effort to save Jim's miserable life (or take the more direct route of attempting to cut the cable or the power and triggering a death-trap,) the thought of being beaten and dragged back into Arkham drives them back into darkness with the look of terror on Jim's face fresh in their minds.

They run until they can't - Oswald lasts less than half a block - and then drop to a brisk walking pace they both can manage, bickering as they stumble through a maze of grimy alleyways. When Ed hesitates at a forking path, Oswald huffs and rolls his eyes and shoulders past him, taking the lead until they finally catch a ride.

From far away they look to the city skyline, its mesmerizing glitter, listening to the wailing of sirens. And for the first time in a long time, as the giddy adrenaline burns away in their veins and they stand there, alive, their sides almost touching, they can just begin to remember what it was like to feel happy. But then the spells breaks, like all good things in Gotham do. A quiet dissolution. And the air grows thick with things said and unsaid between them, with should'ves and could'ves and everything they can never reconcile.

Oswald's not ready for when Ed tips into him suddenly, grasping at his elbow. He stiffens, glaring at the offending hand, then back to Ed. But Ed's looking somewhere into the darkness as if someone's calling to him, a grim smile ghosting his lips. Oswald stares out too, after a while. Watching, from the corner of his eye, as that smile falls and disappears.

* * *

Wine gurgles neatly into their glasses. A smooth, velvety Merlot fitting of a celebration, because Oswald's never one to skimp on himself. He hands Ed his drink before they sink into armchairs by the fire, relieved to rest their legs. Ed drinks deeply, to Oswald's surprise, managing to finish a whole glass by the time he has polished off three.

"I've always admired your taste in wine," Ed says into the darkness, absently turning the glass in his fingers. It feels like only yesterday when he worked here under the watchful eyes of the portraits crowding every wall, fingering through Oswald's records for something swingier, livelier, on his Oswald-imposed breaks. There's always been a sadness to this place; it's too big for one man alone. Rooms adorned with things, so many precious, ancient, glittery things, but empty in a way that can never be filled.

A flicker of a smile teases one corner of Oswald's mouth, there and gone. A trick of the light, maybe.

Oswald refills their glasses and they drink, again, to no one and to nothing.

Ed sips at it this time. Licks the tanginess off his lips, watching as Oswald slouches back into his seat and stares dully into the fire, crawling into some place in his mind. Ed counts five long ticks of the grandfather clock before pulling in a breath and daring to break the silence.

"Actually," Ed laughs, a stuttering, mirthless little thing. "I lied."

Silent, Oswald turns his head to looks at him, more sober than he's been the entire night. It's an all-consuming stare, so blue, stripped back in a way Ed doesn't feel like he should be allowed to see. Not after the words with which they've run each other through, the blood they've drawn.

Ed swallows. "There is... one more thing I want to ask of you." He says.

Oswald's mouth opens. Then closes, pinching fiercely against a tic at the corner of his lips, a muscle in his jaw that won't stop twitching, as his mind swerves into a violent tailspin. It's all the warning Ed gets before Oswald snaps to his feet and whips his drink at the floor, shattering the glass. Shards glitter in the firelight.

Ed climbs to his feet, feeling behind himself for the support of the chair.

"I knew it," Oswald snarls, and Ed's seen it before, seen the way Oswald's face can twist into something animal. He knows what it means, unable look away from it any more than he could a god on judgment day. "Bravo, Nygma!" Oswald lurches forward, eyes shimmery-wet. But maybe, Ed thinks, that's just another trick of the light. "I almost bought into your sick little game! I'll admit, I don't know what you thought you'd accomplish with your pity party, but whatever it was, it's over—do you hear me?"

Oswald stares at him, that terrible, stripped-back stare, his throat bobbing, and in that silence Ed can sense that he's supposed to say something, do something. But all he can do is stare right back.

It tells Oswald everything he needs to know. Whirling around, he lunges for the wine bottle and smashes the end over a table's edge. "It's over!"

Ed rounds his chair. His nails sink into the leather and he struggles to hold on, a child's grip, his other hand still clutching his glass with everything he has.

"I, I- oh," He stutters out, his face going slack.

Then there's a crash as Ed's drink slides from his fingers. His legs soften and he drops with it, what's left of his glass crunching under him. Oswald staggers after him with the bottle, spit-foam clinging to his lip. He screams, a ragged, unhinged sound, and drives his foot into Ed's ribs. Then again, rocking him onto his side.

A noise clots in the back of Ed's throat, his hands curling into claws. His body begins to tremble.

"Enough!" Oswald snarls, his fringe flopping his forehead as he lays into him with everything he has, one desperate kick after another, waiting for the dying-man ruse to fall apart like it's supposed to. But Ed numbly absorbs his fury. Takes and takes until Oswald can't stand it anymore, starved for air and shaking nearly as badly as Ed is. He drops to his knees, a bolt of pain ripping through his leg. But he doesn't care, his head swimmy and thick as he winds back and angles the bottle for Ed's throat. The jagged end of it gleams like a mouth full of broken teeth - and for an instant their history melts away, every laugh they shared, every shot fired. For an instant Ed is just someone else in his way, someone else who doesn't deserve the luxury of getting a few words out before having his throat slashed wide open.

But Ed's face holds none of the fear or defiance he thinks it should. It has a blankness Oswald has never seen before - like Ed's lost in a whole other world - while his head hammers the floor and his eyes roll into the back of his skull. And Oswald stares and stares, the bottle trembling in his grip.

Ed gasps harshly, reddish foam dribbling from his mouth. It doesn't seem real, isn't allowed to be, even when a sharp stink of piss snaps Oswald to attention and he realizes Ed's wet himself. He rears back, the shock of it stopping him cold.

The bottle falls, thudding over the rug, and suddenly his hands are hovering over Ed's body, jittery and useless. Synapses fire and misfire and through the fog of panic something clicks in his mind - _phone._ He pats down his suit and plunges into his pockets, finding it – a small, crappy flip-phone overdue for a replacement. He fumbles through his contact list, mashing buttons. Then finally, it's ringing. Oswald waits, his heart bouncing around in his ribs.

It takes eight rings before a man answers, a gruff deadpan.

"Hello?"

"Stevens!"

If there was anyone who could help it was one of the best backalley butchers Gotham had to offer. Stevens was an old army vet, charging more than enough to make up for the dent his drinking habits put in his wallet. But he was efficient and near-unshakable, everything others needed him to be when they pounded on his door, pale-faced and bleeding out, in the small hours of the morning. That someone had been Oswald himself on a few occasions.

"Penguin..." A heavy sigh. "Let me guess. Gunshot wound? Or are those chest pains back again?"

"This isn't about me, you moron!"

"Really. Well, you'll have to forgive me for not pegging you for the Good Samaritan type."

"Just shut up and listen to me!" Oswald pants out, his gaze snapping to Ed. "There is a man on my floor who is seizing and making a mess and I need you to tell me what to do."

"Depends on the mess. Are we talking paper towels or bleach?"

"Stevens, I am warning you!"

"Alright, alright," The doctor relents. "Calm down. Talk to me. Tell me what you're seeing."

Oswald's mouth has gone dry. His whole body feels like a live wire, crackling with more adrenaline than he knows what to do with. "I told you, he's seizing! He's, he's shaking and vomiting blood..."

"Not vomit. Bastard must've bit his tongue. It happens." Stevens notes. Then: "He on his back?"

"No, his side- why?"

"Good. Keep him like that."

"Am I supposed to put something in his mouth?"

"Well if you're trying to choke him or break his teeth then sure, go ahead."

Ed's body rattles and rattles, his glasses sliding crooked down his nose, and it doesn't make sense to Oswald, none of it does. It hadn't occurred to him, somehow, that someone - or something other than himself - could end Edward Nygma. That there could be a time when Ed wouldn't be there like a sliver deep under his skin. Ed can't die. Not like this.

Not like this.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Oswald snaps. "Tell me, or I swear-!"

"Just let him ride it out."

"What?! Have you not heard a word I've said?" He glares at the wall, the phone pushed up against his ear. "The man's dying, you idiot!"

"He's not dying, Penguin." Stevens answers flatly. "I've seen my share of grand mals. They're ugly and dramatic, sure. But he'll be fine. There ain't a damn thing you can do about it anyway so just don't try anything stupid."

Oswald's head suddenly feels too heavy for his body. He looks up at the ceiling, blinking and blinking, his teeth sinking into his lip. He squeezes his eyes shut.

"Hey - you still with me?" Stevens presses when Oswald goes quiet for too long, something neither of them are used to.

Oswald sucks in a slow, rattling breath and lets it out, his expression settling into something close to resignation. "Yes," he hisses.

"How long's the guy been shaking?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Guess."

"I don't know!" Oswald shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. Time is frustratingly hard to measure, stretching and compressing around him like an accordion. "Two minutes, maybe."

"Well, keep an eye on him. If he's still convulsing five minutes from now, call me back. If he isn't, just keep him on his side so he doesn't choke on that shit in his mouth and loosen anything tight he's got on him - tie, watch, belt, whatever. Don't give him anything, just let him come out of it on his own after he settles down. Could take a while."

"How long?"

"We're talking anywhere from minutes to hours here. If you're that worried then you might want to think about making yourself a drink and pulling up a chair."

Oswald says nothing.

"Now - there anything else I should know about? You taking your-?"

Oswald doesn't wait for the rest. He snaps the phone shut and stares into nothingness, feeling the manor grow bigger and colder around him, like Ed's already vanished into the ether all over again.

* * *

There are times when Oswald thinks he's becoming his mother.

It's the little things. How she'd like to have her morning tea in her finest cup (it tasted better that way, she'd say;) how she'd lick her ink-stained finger flipping through the paper; how she'd put on a record when she ate alone, probably comforted by the sound of someone's voice. But there's enough they don't share in common, he knows. Like her love and generosity, welling up, limitless. She had filled him to the brim with it but he could never seem to hold it long before it drained out of him like a sieve and left him emptier, thirstier for it, than before. She had seemed so happy, too, loving him so fully, giving so much. It's a hard thing for Oswald to understand. Then he remembers how Elijah had drifted in and out of her life like a ghost even while he was still alive and knows she must have felt it too, a hunger for something more to life than what she had. A fever-ache she took to the grave with her.

Ed's still asleep when the first pale rays of day slant in through the curtains - a first. Oswald washes and dresses and has breakfast without him to mother's favourite playing softly on the gramophone -Amelita Galli-Curci s _Home Sweet Home_ \- chasing down a few bites of poached egg and toast with a hot cup of coffee he still can't pretend to like. He's leafed through half of the morning's Gotham Gazette, like normal people do, like they do when everything is fine, when Ed finally steps out of the parlour.

Oswald turns in his chair, looks to the clock on the wall. It reads twelve.

Ed creaks down the hall, down the stairs. Then there's a long silence before the washing machine jerks to life, humming. A few more minutes and Oswald hears him plodding up the staircase to the second floor and, eventually, water hissing through the pipes - a bath being drawn. He lets out a breath. But there's no need for hellos anyway; it had been more than enough to roll Ed out of the glass and the piss-stain in the carpet and leave a simple note next to him ('Be ready for 1:00 PM') along with a blanket and a robe, the dark one with the gold patterning that Ed had borrowed so long ago.

It's a quarter to one when Oswald gives up on reading the same sentence a hundred times over and throws down the paper. He marches upstairs, gripping the banister and hauling himself along, pushing through a dull burn in his chest and a weakness in his knees. He's dizzy by the time he reaches the top and at the bathroom he stops to lean his forehead against the door, eyes closed, breath thick against the wood. Needing a moment to collect himself before he draws his shoulders back and knocks.

"Ed, you have been in there for well over half an hour. I don't know what you're doing and frankly I don't care, but I have arranged for you to see someone. And, FYI?" He smiles the sort of pretty little smile that could cut steel. "It's happening whether you like it or not. So get moving."

Ed offers a non-committal grunt after too long.

"And by the way, if you expect me to throw your suit in the dryer for you while you're busy wallowing in self-pity, you're in for a surprise."

No pithy remark or mumbled protest, for once. Just the sound of water sloshing around the tub. Oswald presses his ear to the door, a muscle rippling in his jaw as he waits as long as he can stand before knocking harder, enough for his knuckles to ache. "Are you listening?!"

The tub squeals, skin on porcelain. And then he hears it, unmistakable: a choked gurgling. The sound spears through his guts and he suddenly can't remember what he was thinking about, the moment before. Everything disappears.

"Ed?" He cries out, a hoarse edge to his voice. His gaze snaps to the doorknob. "Ed, I am coming in!"

He tries it. To his surprise it turns all the way, the door swinging wide open. He staggers in, gasping as he's hit with a blast of humid air. Ed is slumped in the tub with his face half under the surface, water churning furiously around his body.

Oswald's pulse leaps in his throat.

He lunges for the bath, plunging an arm in for the plug. A desperate tug on the chain and it unpops, water draining out - but not nearly fast enough. He hobbles around the tub, panting, and bends to loop his arms around Ed's chest while Ed snorts and splutters foam and splashes around, muscles gathering under his skin. Oswald struggles to sit him back up, to hold him steady against strange, terrifying forces hijacking control of his body. It feels like forever until the tub gurgles empty and Ed settles into him, eyes tightly shut, his mouth hanging open like a beached fish. A blob of bloody foam oozes down his chin, soaking into Oswald's sleeve.

Huffing through his teeth, Oswald hitches his arms under Ed's, then hauls him up to his feet with a huge jolt of adrenaline. Ed's legs slide over the rim of the tub, swinging free. Water dribbles over the tiles.

Ed's body leans hard into his, the damp of his skin soaking his shirt, and Oswald's not ready, never ready, for how heavy he is, impossibly heavy for someone so wiry. Not ready for how different he feels than he did lifetimes ago, when he'd bury his face into Ed's shoulder or slot it in the crook of his neck and pull himself into his softness, his living warmth, breathing in the smell of sandalwood aftershave and soap and him. Something inoffensive he couldn't begin to describe. Ed's body is like a stranger's now, all angles and edges, his bony shoulderblades butting him in the chest.

He totters with Ed, his heart thudding in his throat. But he plants his foot down hard, catching himself - and them - his knee wobbling. Fresh beads of sweat gather at his temples and he gasps, the air thick like a rag stuffing down his throat. Ed's sliding to the floor, slowly, Oswald's grip on him slipping, and they go down together, Oswald's legs giving out on the way. But he manages, somehow, to ease Ed down soft, not realizing how tightly he's held his breath until it rushes out of him and he's starved for the next, feeling floaty and lightheaded when he climbs to his feet to rip a few towels off the rack.

He spreads a broad, thicker one across the floor and rolls Ed onto it, on his side. Angry bruises mottle his ribs, skin crusted with blood.

Oswald swallows, staring blankly a minute.

He's never seen Ed this way before. Never more than a lean, bare arm or a sockless foot, the hollow at the base of his throat. Stolen glimpses of things when they had buttoned up and tweaked cufflinks and laced up in preparation for social functions tied to mayoral obligations, or when stumbling in on him while looking for hair gels or hand creams or tie bars.

It doesn't mean much now. Where Oswald might've looked, once, with a guilty twinge of curiosity, a trill low in his belly, half-embarrassed at himself, it's hard to look at Ed now and see something other than a frailty there, a startling smallness to Ed's curled body. He drapes the other towel over Ed, turning away. Ed lays there, breathing, a thick, wet sound like a terrible sort of snoring.

There's nothing left to do.

Oswald steps away and out onto the balcony, his mind rolling around and around and folding over itself while he sits still, trembling fingers feeling for the matches he brought with him, for a cigarette he fits between his lips. It's grey and bone-cold, the smell of rain in the air. Colder where his shirt sticks to his skin, sweat and bathwater. He strikes the match, lights it on the second pass. Cupping his hand around the flame, gentle, against the wind trying to rip it away.

.

.

.

A mirror hangs in the front hall. Ed's leaning over a table giving it all his attention.

"You're going." Oswald says, watching him intently. "And it's not a debate."

Ed's still fixing his bowler hat over his head and pointedly ignoring the other's reflection. "Why, so he can tell me what I already know?" A crooked, humourless smile. "I'll pass."

Oswald's hands clench and unclench at his sides.

"Ed, you nearly drowned in a bathtub. That's a new low."

It hangs heavy in the air between them and Ed goes very still, muscles flexing in his throat.

"Nearly," he grits out. He feels the weight of Oswald's gaze on him and easily imagines the look on his face - the fierce blue of his eyes, his tightened mouth.

"Really, Ed?"

"I don't need you to remind me."

"Um, yes, actually. I think you do."

"Forget. About. Stevens, Oswald." Ed slants him a dark look. "I'll do this my way."

Something shifts inside Oswald, cracks, a sick laugh bubbling up in his throat. "Oh? You mean like sitting around twiddling your thumbs until the next time you start flailing uncontrollably?"

A twitch pulls at the corner of Ed's mouth.

"How's that working out for you?" Crossing his arms, Oswald cranes his neck and edges into Ed's peripheral vision. His eyebrows go up. "...Care to share with the rest of the class?"  
Ed slams the table with his hand and whips around to face him, eyes bright with a lightning-flash of emotion. Oswald meets his gaze, ready, their faces inches apart.

"Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" Ed rasps, and Oswald can feel his spit on his skin, the heat of his breath bearding his lip. "You had that bottle in your hand. You were ready!"

Oswald remembers, more than anything else, the tidal roar of blood through his ears. How his skull had throbbed and throbbed, feeling like it was splitting open from the inside. But things come to Oswald in bits and pieces, pulling into focus. The way Ed had stood behind the chair. Watching him, waiting, ready for something though never getting to finish what he wanted to say.

Oswald goes blank, his chest heaving. From somewhere faraway - a different time and place - Ed's hands shoot out for him, snatching fistfuls of his shirt.

"Answer me!" Ed snarls, shaking him.

A fresh surge of adrenaline rips through Oswald, his pupils sharpening. He shoves at Ed's hands and breaks his grip. "If you want to die so badly, then why don't you do it yourself?"

"Because you-" he stabs a finger into Oswald's chest "- got in the way! I admit the bath was never a guarantee - but it could've been had you come just a few minutes later." His throat bobs thickly but he goes on, racing through an explanation. "HWE, epi... epileptic episodes known to be triggered by high temperatures - in this case, immersion in hot water."

The words bounce around Oswald's head like balloons and he suddenly feels hollow, lightheaded, needing something to hold onto. "...what?" It's sharp, barely above a whisper.

Ed's face is hard-set. Hands curled into fists.

And before sense and understanding, before anything else, there's anger, there always is. A dizzying rush that floods Oswald, top to bottom, so powerful it nearly sucks the breath from his lungs. "So. Is this really what the "great and powerful" Riddler has become? A pathetic, craven-"

"It's my life, Oswald!" Ed cuts him off, his voice cracking. "My choice!"

The air between them crackles like a storm about to break. They eye each other, giving no ground.

"I found the Zanprin in your medicine cabinet." The words rush out of Ed's mouth, and he doesn't care how Oswald feels about his fingering through a pharmacy's worth of pain killers and muscle relaxants and miscellaneous prescription pills in bottles with neatly sharpied labels. Ed had seen a small container among them, one of same heart medicine prescribed to Elijah once upon a time. Or what Elijah was meant to have taken in lieu of mints. "Prescribed two weeks ago yesterday. Sixty capsules, to be taken twice daily between meals. I counted all sixty."

Oswald glares, silent. His throat moves.

"Your nails are blue, Oswald!" Ed snatches the man's hand by the wrist and forces him to look at it, a disdainful curl to his lip. "A classic sign of heart problems which you inherited from your father. You can't even walk two blocks without being short of breath."

Oswald yanks his hand free like he touched fire. "So what?" he shoots back. "What do you care?"

"My point," Ed growls, "is that you have no right telling me what I should be doing, let alone when you can't even take care of yourself! But you've always been blinded by your own selfishness!"

There's a buzzing in Oswald's ears. He knew it was coming. The s-word, that knife-twist of a word that finds the softest, rawest part of him like it always does and hurts more than it has any right to hurt after this long, after he's been through this before, bound to a car with a barrelful of acid a few seconds away from tipping over his head.

He steps into Ed's space, his voice low, seething-cold.

"You call for the first time in years begging me to take you on a field trip to the zoo, demanding that I drop everything for you just because no one else would." He tilts up his chin challengingly, a part of him wanting Ed to tip him past the point of no return. Wanting to leave Ed behind with a thunderstorm of anger like he should have from the start, to step away vindicated, lighter and freer than he's ever felt. "I did what you wanted - and I owe you nothing. So if you plan on blowing your brains out then go ahead." He motions sideways with a jerk of his chin, never taking his eyes off him. "Just do me a favour and find somewhere else to do it. You've made enough of a mess on my floor as it is."

A hand snaps out and cracks across Oswald's face, his head whiplashing.

Then there's silence, one so deep Ed can hear the blood throbbing in his ears. And when Oswald turns his eyes on him he knows, he knows there's no going back.  
Oswald surges at him and they slam into each other, Ed's hat flying, hands swinging and shoving as they fight like cornered animals. One of his fists clips Ed's jaw, flinging his glasses off his nose. They clatter to the floor but Ed doesn't go for them, doesn't think, ears ringing as he beats back Oswald's thrashing limbs long enough to grab him and whirl him around, driving him into the wall. A picture frame falls, the glass shattering.

Pain forks through the back of Oswald's skull, starbursts of light bursting behind his eyes. But he's still kicking and crying out until Ed gives him another fierce shove. His fingers dig into Oswald's arms and keep him there, feeling the wiry tremor running through him.

"I won't -" Ed squeezes his eyes shut, grasping at words -"_Won't_ spend the rest of my life in a clinic surrounded by incompetent idiots!"

Oswald heaves against him, one last twisting, frustrated effort. Then gives up, the both of them gasping for air like dogs. They stay like that a while, wrung-out, heads clearing slowly, slowly. Adrenaline burning away to a dull glow. Ed looks at the redness staining Oswald's cheek in the shape of his fingers. It's a long time before he tries again in a voice too raw, too worn around the edges to command anything close to fear or respect, the things Oswald understands.

"Oswald-" Ed says, swallowing. His face is still, his gaze steady. "This is your last chance to settle the score, once and for all. After everything I put you through... If there is anyone who deserves to do this, it's you."

Oswald's gaze refocuses and he looks at him, really looks at him, like he's seeing him for the first time.

"Just one bullet. Simple." A chuckle tangles up in Ed's throat. "You've done it before."

That Ed would dare to compare this to anyone else he's pumped a round into, anyone else's brains he's splattered onto the concrete, makes him shake and it's not fair, none of it's fair. "Fuck you-" He hisses, his nostrils quivering. But there's no fire left in his belly. He's tired, so tired.

"You'll be stronger." Ed continues, seeing Oswald's face wrench up and feeling like he's watching something dying. "Unencumbered."

From anyone else it'd have meant nothing, the word. But it drags a shuddering breath out of Oswald's lungs and there's a sudden give to his body that surprises Ed, the feeling that he'll slide to the floor if he lets him, as all the wrenching frustration and helplessness of the past few days crashes over him in a single, powerful wave, pulling him apart. A sob punches out of Oswald's throat, raw and animal, and he hates it, hates that Ed has to see him like this all over again. He hates the way Ed waltzed back onto the centre stage of his life, the answer to a question he had never asked, and was now bowing out before the curtains have closed. Hates this sick and terrible wanting he can't shake, a whole-bodied, crazy wanting like a drowning man wants air, that drives him, struggling, to save someone who didn't want to be saved. And, that after so many years and so many people slowly going cold in his arms, after Gotham's eaten away at what's left of the man he could've been in some other place, some other life, and laid him bare, his cutting, glittering brokenness, that he hasn't learned anything at all. That all his sharkish cunning means nothing because he's gotten no better at saving anyone, only better at killing them.

Ed searches his face. A confused look that softens, opens, as a tumbler falls into place in his mind.

"Oswald." He says.

Slowly, Ed's hands loosen from around Oswald's shoulders, lift away. Oswald doesn't fall. And for a moment he expects a knowing flicker in Oswald's eyes before he goes for his throat, because that's the Oswald he knows, the one he remembers best. The Oswald who won't let him go unless it's on his terms.

But this Oswald stands there, folding in on himself, just shaking for a minute.

They sought each others' comfort once, the steadying press of one heartbeat against the other. But that was a long time ago, when they still knew how to and knew less about each other, when it didn't feel strange like grasping at each other with too many arms.

So Ed doesn't try to reach for him and Oswald doesn't move; and for a while they just listen to the soft, wet hitching of Oswald's breath, to the sound of Ed not apologizing and Oswald not forgiving him, the sound of neither of them saying the soft, achingly gentle things that normal people do.

Then the next minute comes and he watches Oswald draw himself up on his own, little by little. Watches his eyes change, still shining, and a faraway, hollow determination settle into them, and Ed knows that, someday, Oswald would take this pain and twist it into something useful. That, someday, everything could almost be okay for one of them, at least.  
When Oswald finally looks at him he's not all there, Ed can tell. But enough of him is to tell him to get into the car.

Ed gives him the barest hint of a nod. He doesn't ask where they're going. He already knows.

* * *

They can't go back to where they started. So they drive on, going to the place where they always seem to be saying goodbye and stand by the edge of the pier, staring out over silvered waters while everything they thought about saying on the way over turns to smoke, slipping through their fingers.

Oswald sniffs, hunches into the feathered collar of his coat. A chill in the air Ed that doesn't seem to notice, his mind somewhere else when he touches the rim of his hat, slides it off his head. He turns it in his hands consideringly, skimming the felt, one side of his mouth going up a little.

Oswald watches him, watches the way they move, that gentle reverence. Ed has always had beautiful hands. A pianists' fingers.

"I might've... 'borrowed' it from you a few years ago." Ed admits.

Lips pursed, Oswald throws him a resenting look. Not for the hat but for the attempt at levity, the attempt to pull a conversation out of him, and that it's working. "I noticed. And sorry to burst your bubble, but it looks awful on you."

A soft snort. "Highly debatable."

Ed looks to him, then, maybe waiting for a laugh, or for Oswald to challenge him. He chews the inside of his lip before carefully holding the hat out to him. Oswald looks at it.

"Something to remember me by," Ed says with that faint half-smile, with those eyes too old for his face, and they look at each other for a long time, their breath misting in the air. Long enough for the smile to wear thin at the edges and for the silence from the ride over to return, brittle like a crust of ice over a lake just before it snaps.

Finally, Oswald reaches for the hat. They brush fingertips, neither of them apologizing for it any more than they have for anything else. He holds it at his side, his fingers curling tight around the brim.

"Oswald, " Ed says.

It's frayed and soft around the edges, a voice he hasn't heard since he and Ed had sat by the fire - bruises fresh and dark on Ed's throat - and Ed had promised him the world, offering loyalty Oswald had never found in anyone since. And Oswald feels himself falling all over again, falling into the old trap of wondering if Ed had ever felt it for the briefest moment, a love for him that sat heavy in his chest, that kept him wide awake in the small hours of the morning. It's a riddle to him, the workings of Ed's heart, the way it has always been. But one with an answer that shouldn't matter, can't matter anymore. He's never liked riddles anyway.

"-don't." says Oswald, sharply.

Ed doesn't.

Something indefinable, strained, bleeds into Ed's expression before he looks down at his hands, at the loose fists he's made. But when he lifts his head again, standing just a little taller, there's something different in his eyes. Shades of the old Ed that was all poise and sly cleverness, the Ed that still admired him. And something else, something close to happiness - though Oswald can't be sure. Maybe it's gratitude. Maybe the pride of knowing he'd taken something Oswald could never get back, something others could never touch.

Oswald pulls away, putting a few feet between them before he slides a hand under his coat. From behind, Ed's loud green suit is just another shade of grey against the night.  
Ed sucks in a breath and Oswald does too, the kind of breath a person takes before they disappear under the surface for a long time. Words hover, teasingly, on Ed's tongue and at the tingling tips of his fingers, and for one lucid moment he suddenly has the right ones in his grasp, holding onto them with everything he has. The rise and fall of chest sharpens; he wets his lips, opens them.

"I-"

A shot rolls through the darkness.

Mouth open, empty, Ed's head snaps forward, blood and brain jelly and bone chips thrown into the river before his body crumples. Falling for the last time.  
Oswald starts, his ears ring shrilly.

He never hears the sound of Ed hitting the concrete, a boneless slab of meat. But he feels it, feels it crush his lungs and double him over and he chokes out a gasp, the air knifing into him. His eyes burn.

A blood-puddle spreads from under Ed. So calm and still.

No more shaking.

No more favours or accusations or stupid riddles scattered around Gotham, a trail of breadcrumbs left for The Bat.

Ed's gone.

The gun drops to Oswald's side. Still trembling in Oswald's grip when his body goes cold and his knees slam the ground, an animal scream ripping from his throat.

.

.

.

A body washes up on a muddy river bank a day later, green suit shimmering among old, rotted tires and cans and six pack rings.

"It's gotta be Penguin," Harvey says back at the GCPD, unwrapping a sloppy-looking sandwich over his desk. He pauses as some hooligan in a jingling leather jacket is lead in through the doors and shoved into a holding cell, shouting about his rights. A few officers lift their heads, staring blandly, before looking back to their typewriters and keyboards and pecking away at reports. Phones ring endlessly, everywhere.

"...But why?" Jim asks.

Harvey just shrugs and takes a bite.

"I don't know," He says around a mouthful, spreading his hands, "maybe because they're psychos? Maybe they fought over who gets the TV remote. Who cares."

Jim has no answer. Where there's Penguin and Nygma, there's fire; and as another folder is lightly tossed onto his desk, one more added to the pile, he's left with the vague relief of knowing there was one less fire in Gotham to worry about. Sighing, Jim gulps down what's left of his coffee and opens a fresh file.

* * *

Three years later, in the grey light of dawn, a soggy, shapeless lump of fabric finds its way to the river's edge. A bowler hat.

* * *

The mirror still hangs in the front hall of the manor.

Penguin's leaning over a table giving it all his attention, fixing his top hat over his head. Then, after a while, he straightens up, pulling in a breath.

It's been long enough since he's studied his face in the mirror that he can't properly tell if he's always looked so pale or if it's only the light from the chandelier he's standing under. But then he's turning and heading out for the Iceberg Lounge, a little slower, a little stiffer, his cane clicking over stone steps as he makes for his car. And it doesn't matter anymore, it can't matter.

There's work to be done.


End file.
